In partnership with the FES, LO-Norway, national trade unions and others, the IDWF gathered domestic workers leaders and other social partners to discuss concrete suggestions to address rights gaps of migrant domestic workers in the region.

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In partnership with the FES, LO-Norway, national trade unions and others, the IDWF gathered domestic workers leaders and other social partners to discuss concrete suggestions to address rights gaps of migrant domestic workers in the region.

The 3 meetings held in September were:

IDWF, in collaboration with Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung, LO Norway and the General Federation of Bahraini Trade Union (GFBTU), have organized a workshop on promoting cooperation between domestic workers unions in countries of origin in Asia and Africa and national trade union centres in countries of destination in the Arab Gulf to operationalize existing Union-to-union agreements and, subsequently, provide greater protection for domestic workers across the migration cycle.

The meeting took place on 11-12 September 2017. A national workshop (also organized by IDWF, GFBTU and FES) preceded the meeting on the 10th. IDWF affiliates from Nepal, India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have participated in the meeting. Our partner in Kuwait has also joined the meeting.

IDWF, in collaboration with Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung Lebanon and the National Federation of Employees’ and Workers’ Unions in Lebanon, organized a national discussion on “Revisiting the meaning of ‘domestic work’ in Lebanon: Demographic transformations and policy implications for the sector” on 14 September 2017 in Beirut.

The workshop aimed to offer alternatives to the current practice of setting wages for domestic workers bilaterally with the countries of origin according to nationality. Instead, the workshop presented good practices on setting wages for domestic workers according to competency and qualifications. IDWF affiliates from Italy and Hong Kong have attended the meeting to speak to the role of trade unions in promoting occupational mobility within and outside the sector, fairer migration outcomes for workers, and quality services for employers.

IDWF, in collaboration with Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung, organized a workshop “Migrant domestic workers in Jordan: Sharing priorities and guiding policy change” in Amman on 16 September 2017. The workshop was guided by the priorities of the Domestic Workers Solidarity Network in Jordan.

The three priorities of actions that they have decided to take forward collaboratively with other partners in the short and medium terms are: (a) Eliminating worker-paid overstaying fines; (b) Eliminating the practice of forcing workers to reimburse recruitment fees as a precondition for labour market mobility; and, (c) Strengthening wage protection mechanisms.